anxiety about a Royal meal so hastily prepared. But if Gowrie had plenty
of warning, from Henderson (as I do not doubt), that theory is not
sufficient. If engaged in a conspiracy, Gowrie would have reason for
anxiety. The circumstances, owing to the number of the royal retinue,
were unfavourable, yet, as the story of the pot of gold had been told by
Ruthven, the plot could not be abandoned. James even 'chaffed' Gowrie
about being so pensive and _distrait_, and about his neglect of some
little points of Scottish etiquette. Finally he sent Gowrie into the
hall, with the grace-cup for the gentlemen, and then called the Master.
He sent Gowrie, apparently, that he might slip off with the Master, as
that gentleman wished. 'His Majesty desired Mr. Alexander to bring Sir
Thomas Erskine with him, who' (Ruthven) 'desiring the King to go forward
with him, and promising that he should make any one or two follow him
that he pleased to call for, desiring his Majesty to command _publicly_
that none should follow him.' This seems to mean, James and the Master
were to cross the hall and go upstairs; James, or the Master for him,
bidding no one follow (the Master, according to Balgonie, did say that
the King would be alone), while, presently, the Master should return and
privately beckon on one or two to join the King. The Master's excuse for
all this was the keeping from Gowrie and others, for the moment, of the
secret of the prisoner and the pot of gold.
Now, if we turn back to Sir Thomas Erskine's evidence, we find that, when
he joined James in the chamber, after the slaying of the Master, he said
'I thought your Majesty would have concredited more to me, than to have
commanded me to await your Majesty at the door, if you thought it not
meet to have taken me with you.' The King replied, 'Alas, the traitor
deceived me in that, as in all else, for I commanded him expressly to
bring you to me, and he returned back, as I thought, to fetch you, but he
did nothing but _steik_ [shut] the door.'
What can these words mean? They appear to me to imply that James sent
the Master back, according to their arrangement, to bring Erskine, that
the Master gave Erskine some invented message about waiting at some door,
that he then shut a door between the King and his friends, but told the
King that Erskine was to follow them. Erskine was, beyond doubt, in the
street with the rest of the retinue, before the brawl in the turret
reached its crisis, when Gowrie had twice insisted that James had ridden
away.
In any case, to go on with James's tale, he went with Ruthven up a
staircase (the great staircase), 'and through three or four
rooms'--'three or four sundry _houses_'--'the Master ever locking behind
him every door as he passed, and so into a little study'--the turret.
This is perplexing. We nowhere hear in the evidence of more than two
doors, in the suite, which were locked. The staircase perhaps gave on
the long gallery, with a door between them. The gallery gave on a
chamber, which had a door (the door battered by Lennox and Mar), and the
chamber gave on a turret, which had a door between it and the chamber.
We hear, in the evidence, of no other doors, or of no other locked doors.
However, in the Latin indictment of the Ruthvens, 'many doors' are
insisted on. As all the evidence tells of opposition from only _one_
door--that between the gallery and the chamber of death--James's reason
for talking of 'three or four doors' must be left to conjecture. 'The
True Discourse' (MS.) gives but the gallery, chamber, and turret, but
appears to allow for a door between stair and gallery, which the Master
'closed,' while he 'made fast' the next door, that between gallery and
chamber. One Thomas Hamilton, {52a} who writes a long letter (MS.) to a
lady unknown, also speaks of several doors, on the evidence of the King,
and some of the Lords. This manuscript has been neglected by historians.
{52b}
Leaving this point, we ask why a man already suspicious, like James, let
the Master lock any door behind him. We might reply that James had
dined, and that 'wine and beer produce a careless state of mind,' as a
writer on cricket long ago observed. We may also suppose that, till
facts proved the locking of one door at least (for about that there is no
doubt), James did not know that any door _was_ locked. On August 11 the
Rev. Mr. Galloway, in a sermon preached before the King and the populace
at the Cross of Edinburgh, says that the Master led the monarch upstairs,
'and through a _trans_' (a passage), 'the door whereof, so soon as they
had entered, _chekit to with ane lok_, then through a gallery, whose door
also _chekit to_, through a chamber, and the door thereof _chekit to_,
also,' and thence into the turret of which he 'also locked the door.'
{53}
Were the locks that 'chekit to' spring locks, and was James unaware that
he was locked in? But Ramsay, before the affray, had wandered into 'a
gallery, very fair,' and unless there were two galleries, he could not do
this, if the gallery door was locked. Lennox and Mar and the rest speak
of opposition from only one door.
While we cannot explain these things, _that_ door, at least, between the
gallery and the gallery chamber, excluded James from most of his friends.
Can the reader believe that he purposely had that door locked, we know
not how, or by whom, on the system of compelling Gowrie to 'come and be
killed' by way of the narrow staircase? Could we see Gowrie House, and
its 'secret ways,' as it then was, we might understand this problem of
the locked doors. Contemporary criticism, as minutely recorded by
Calderwood, found no fault with the number of locked doors, but only
asked 'how could the King's fear but increase, perceiving Mr. Alexander'
(the Master) 'ever to lock the doors behind them?' If the doors closed
with spring locks (of which the principle had long been understood and
used), the King may not have been aware of the locking. The problem
cannot be solved; we only disbelieve that the King himself had the door
locked, to keep his friends out, and let Gowrie in.
NOTE.--_The Abbey of Scone_. On page 48 we have quoted the statement
that James had bestowed on Gowrie the Abbey of Scone 'during his life.'
This was done in 1580 (_Registrum Magni Sigilli_, vol. iii. No. 3011).
On May 25, 1584, William Fullarton got this gift, the first Earl of
Gowrie and his children being then forfeited. But on July 23, 1586, the
Gowrie of the day was restored to all his lands, and the Earldom of
Gowrie included the old church lands of Scone (_Reg. Mag. Sig._ iv. No.
695, No. 1044). How, then, did John, third Earl of Gowrie, hold only
'for his life' the Commendatorship of the Abbey of Scone, as is stated in
S. P. Scot. (Eliz.) vol. lxvi. No. 50?
IV. THE KING'S NARRATIVE--II. THE MAN IN THE TURRET
We left James entering the little 'round,' or 'study,' the turret
chamber. Here, at last, he expected to find the captive and the pot of
gold. And here the central mystery of his adventure began. His Majesty
saw standing, 'with a very abased countenance, not a bondman but a
freeman, with a dagger at his girdle.' Ruthven locked the door, put on
his hat, drew the man's dagger, and held the point to the King's breast,
'_avowing now that the King behoved to be at his will_, _and used as he
list_; swearing many bloody oaths that if the King cried one word, or
opened a window to look out, that dagger should go to his heart.'
If this tale is true, murder was not intended, unless James resisted: the
King was only being _threatened_ into compliance with the Master's
'will.' Ruthven added that the King's conscience must now be burthened
'for murdering his father,' that is, for the execution of William, Earl
of Gowrie, in 1584. His conviction was believed to have been procured in
a dastardly manner, later to be explained.
James was unarmed, and obviously had no secret coat of mail, in which he
could not have hunted all day, perhaps. Ruthven had his sword; as for
the other man he stood 'trembling and quaking.' James now made to the
Master the odd harangue reported even in Nicholson's version of the
Falkland letter of the same day. As for Gowrie's execution, the King
said, he had then been a minor (he was eighteen in 1584), and Gowrie was
condemned 'by the ordinary course of law'--which his friends denied.
James had restored, he said, all the lands and dignities of the House,
two of Ruthven's sisters were maids of honour. Ruthven had been educated
by the revered Mr. Rollock, he ought to have learned better behaviour.
If the King died he would be avenged: Gowrie could not hope for the
throne. The King solemnly promised forgiveness and silence, if Ruthven
let him go.
Ruthven now uncovered his head, and protested that the King's life should
be safe, if he made no noise or cry: in that case Ruthven would now bring
Gowrie to him. 'Why?' asked James; 'you could gain little by keeping
such a prisoner?' Ruthven said that he could not explain; Gowrie would
tell him the rest. Turning to _the other man_, he said 'I make you the
King's keeper till I come again, and see that you keep him upon your
peril.' He then went out, and locked the door. The person who later
averred that he had been the man in the turret, believed that Ruthven
never went far from the door. James believed, indeed averred, that he
ran downstairs, and consulted Gowrie.
If there was an armed man in the turret, he was either placed there by
the King, to protect him while he summoned his minions by feigned cries
of treason, or he was placed there by Gowrie to help the Master to seize
the King. In the latter case, the Master's position was now desperate;
in lieu of an ally he had procured a witness against himself. Great need
had he to consult Gowrie, but though Gowrie certainly entered the house,
went upstairs, and returned to Lennox with the assurance that James had
ridden away, it is improbable that he and his brother met at this moment.
James, however, avers that they met, Ruthven running rapidly downstairs,
but this was mere inference on the King's part.
James occupied the time of Ruthven's absence in asking the man of the
turret what he knew of the conspiracy. The man replied that he knew
nothing, he had but recently been locked into the little chamber.
Indeed, while Ruthven was threatening, the man (says James) was
trembling, and adjuring the Master not to harm the King. James, having
sworn to Ruthven that he would not open the window himself, now,
characteristically, asked the man to open the window 'on his right hand.'
If the King had his back to the turret door, the window on his right
opened on the courtyard, the window on his left opened on the street.
The man readily opened the window, says the King, and the person claiming
to be the man deponed later that he first opened what the King declared
to be the wrong window, but, before he could open the other, in came the
Master, who, 'casting his hands abroad in desperate manner, said "he
could not mend it, his Majesty behoved to die."' Instead of stabbing
James, however, he tried to bind the Royal hands with a garter, 'swearing
he behoved to be bound.' (A garter was later picked up on the floor by
one of the witnesses, Graham of Balgonie, and secured by Sir Thomas
Erskine. {58})
A struggle then began, James keeping the Master's right hand off his
sword-hilt; the Master trying to silence James with his left hand. James
dragged the Master to the window, which the other man had opened. (In
the Latin indictment of the dead Ruthvens, James opens the window
himself.) The turret man said, in one of two depositions, that he
stretched across the wrestlers, and opened the window. The retinue and
Gowrie were passing, as we know, or loitering below; Gowrie affected not
to hear the cries of treason; Lennox, Mar, and the rest rushed up the
great staircase. Meanwhile, struggling with the Master, James had
brought him out of the turret into the chamber, so he says, though, more
probably, the Master brought _him_. They were now near the door of the
chamber that gave on the narrow staircase, and James was 'throwing the
Master's sword out of his hand, thinking to have stricken him therewith,'
when Ramsay entered, and wounded the Master, who was driven down the
stairs, and there killed by Erskine and Herries. Gowrie then invaded the
room with seven others: James was looking for the Master's sword, {59}
which had fallen, but he was instantly shut into the turret by his
friends, and saw none of the fight in which Gowrie fell. After that
Lennox and the party with hammers were admitted, and--the tumult
appeased--James rode back, through a dark rainy night, to Falkland.
[Picture: The Gallery Chamber and the Turret, Gowrie House]
V. HENDERSON'S NARRATIVE
The man in the turret had vanished like a ghost. Henderson, on the day
after the tragedy, was also not to be found. Like certain Ruthvens, Hew
Moncrieff, Eviot, and others, who had fought in the death-chamber, or
been distinguished in the later riot, Henderson had fled. He was, though
a retainer of Gowrie, a member of the Town Council of Perth, and
'chamberlain,' or 'factor,' of the lands of Scone, then held by Gowrie
from the King. To find any one who had seen him during the tumult was
difficult or impossible. William Robertson, a notary of Perth, examined
in November before the Parliamentary Committee, said then that he only
saw Gowrie, with his two drawn swords, and seven or eight companions, in
the forecourt of the house, and so, 'being afraid, he passed out of the
place.' The same man, earlier, on September 23, when examined with other
citizens of Perth, had said that he followed young Tullibardine and some
of his men, who were entering the court 'to relieve the King.' {60} He
saw the Master lying dead at the foot of the stair, and saw Henderson
'come out of the said turnpike, over the Master's belly.' He spoke to
Henderson, who did not answer. He remembered that Murray of Arbany was
present. Arbany, before the Parliamentary Committee in November, said
nothing on this subject, _nor did Robertson_. His evidence would have
been important, had he adhered to what he said on September 23. But,
oddly enough, if he perjured himself on the earlier occasion (September
23), he withdrew his perjury, when it would have been useful to the
King's case, in the evidence given before the Lords of the Articles, in
November. Mr. Barbe, perhaps misled by the sequence of versions in
Pitcairn, writes: 'Apparently it was only when his memory had been
stimulated by the treatment of those whose evidence was found to be
favourable to the King that the wily notary recalled the details by which
he intended to corroborate Henderson's statement. . . . ' {61a}
The reverse is the case: the wily notary did not offer, at the trial in
November, the evidence which he had given, in September, at the
examination of the citizens of Perth. It may perhaps be inferred that
perjury was not encouraged, but depressed. {61b}
Despite the premiums on perjury which Ruthven apologists insist on, not
one witness would swear to having seen Henderson during or after the
tumult. Yet he instantly fled, with others who had been active in the
brawl, and remained in concealment. Calderwood, the earnest collector of
contemporary gossip and documents, assures us that when the man in the
turret could not be found, the first proclamation identified him with a
Mr. Robert Oliphant, a 'black grim man,' but that Oliphant proved his
absence from Perth. One Gray and one Lesley were also suspected, and one
Younger (hiding when sought for, it is said) was killed. But we have no
copy of the proclamation as to Mr. Robert Oliphant. To Mr. Robert
Oliphant, who had an alibi, we shall return, for this gentleman, though
entirely overlooked by our historians, was probably at the centre of the
situation (p. 71, _infra_).
Meanwhile, whatever Henderson had done, he mysteriously vanished from
Gowrie House, during or after the turmoil, 'following darkness like a
dream.' Nobody was produced who could say anything about seeing
Henderson, after Moncrieff and the Hays saw him on his return from
Falkland, at about ten o'clock in the morning of August 5.
By August 12, Henderson was still in hiding, and was still being
proclaimed for, with others, of whom Mr. Robert Oliphant was not one:
they were Moncrieff, Eviot, and two Ruthvens. {63a} But, on August 11 at
the Cross of Edinburgh, in presence of the King, his chaplain, the Rev.
Patrick Galloway, gave news of Henderson. Mr. Galloway had been minister
of Perth, and a fierce Presbyterian of old.
Blow, Galloway, the trumpet of the Lord!
exclaimed a contemporary poet. But James had tamed Galloway, he was now
the King's chaplain, he did not blow the trumpet of the Lord any longer,
and, I fear, was capable of anything. He had a pension, Calderwood tells
us, from the lands of Scone, and knew Henderson, who, as Chamberlain, or
steward, paid the money. In his exciting sermon, Galloway made a
dramatic point. Henderson was found, and Henderson was the man in the
turret! Galloway had received a letter from Henderson, in his own hand;
any listener who knew Henderson's hand might see the letter. Henderson
tells his tale therein; Galloway says that it differs almost nothing from
the King's story, of which he had given an abstract in his discourse.
And he adds that Henderson stole downstairs while Ramsay was engaged with
the Master. {63b}
Henderson, being now in touch with Galloway, probably received promise of
his life, and of reward, for he came in before August 20, and, at the
trial in November, was relieved of the charge of treason, and gave
evidence.
Here we again ask, Why did Henderson take to flight? What had he to do
with the matter? None fled but those who had been seen, sword in hand,
in the fatal chamber, or stimulating the populace to attack the King
during the tumult. Andrew Ruthven, who had ridden to Falkland with
Henderson and the Master, did not run away, no proclamation for _him_ is
on record. Nobody swore to seeing Henderson, like his fellow fugitives,
armed or active, yet he fled and skulked. Manifestly Henderson had, in
one way or other, been suspiciously concerned in the affair. He had come
in, and was at Falkland, by August 20, when he was examined before the
Chancellor, Montrose, the King's Advocate, Sir Thomas Hamilton, Sir
George Hume of Spot (later Earl of Dunbar), and others, in the King's
absence. He deponed that, on the night of August 4, Gowrie bade him and
Andrew Ruthven ride early to Falkland with the Master, and return, if the
Master ordered him so to do, with a message. At Falkland they went into
a house, {64} and the Master sent him to learn what the King was doing.
He came back with the news; the Master talked with the King, then told
Henderson to carry to Gowrie the tidings of the King's visit, 'and that
his Majesty would be quiet.' Henderson asked if he was to start at once.
Ruthven told him to wait till he spoke to the King again. They did
speak, at a gap in a wall, during the check in the run; Ruthven returned
to Henderson, sent him off, and Henderson reached Perth about ten
o'clock. Gowrie, on his arrival, left the company he was with (the two
Hays), and here George Hay's evidence makes Gowrie ask Henderson 'who was
with the King at Falkland?' Hay said that Gowrie then took Henderson
into another room. Henderson says nothing about a question as to the
King's company, asked in presence of Hay, a compromising and improbable
question, if Gowrie wished to conceal the visit to Falkland.
Apart, Gowrie put some other questions to Henderson as to how the King
received the Master. Henderson then went to his house; an hour later
Gowrie bade him put on his secret coat of mail, and plate sleeves, as he
had to arrest a Highlander. Henderson did as commanded; at twelve the
steward told him to bring up dinner, as Craigengelt (the caterer) was
ill. Dinner began at half-past twelve; at the second course the Master
entered, Andrew Ruthven had arrived earlier. The company rose from
table, and Henderson, who was not at the moment in the room, heard them
moving, and thought that they were 'going to make breeks for Maconilduy,'
that is, to catch the Highlander. Finding he was wrong, he threw his
steel gauntlet into the pantry, and sent his boy to his house with his
steel cap. He then followed Gowrie to meet the King, and, after he had
fetched 'a drink' (which James says 'was long in coming'), the Master
bade him ask Mr. Rhynd, Gowrie's old tutor, for the key of the gallery,
which Rhynd brought to the Master. Gowrie then went up, and spoke with
the Master, and, after some coming and going, Henderson was sent to the
Master in the gallery. Thither Gowrie returned, and bade Henderson do
whatever the Master commanded. (The King says that Gowrie came and went
from the room, during his dinner.) The Master next bade Henderson enter
the turret, and locked him in. He passed the time in terror and in
prayer.
There follows the story of the entry of James and the Master, and
Henderson now avers that he 'threw' the dagger out of the Master's hand.
He declares that the Master said that he wanted 'a promise from the
King,' on what point Gowrie would explain. The rest is much as in the
King's account, but Henderson was 'pressing to have opened the window,'
he says, when the Master entered for the second time, with the garter to
bind the King's hands. During the struggle Henderson removed the
Master's hand from the King's mouth, and opened the window. The Master
said to him, 'Wilt thou not help? Woe betide thee, thou wilt make us all
die.' {67a}
Henderson's later deposition, at the trial in November, was mainly, but
not without discrepancies, to the same effect as his first. He said that
he prayed, when alone in the turret, but omits the statement (previously
made by him) that he deprived Ruthven of his dagger, a very improbable
tale, told falsely at first, no doubt, as Robertson the notary at first
invented his fable about meeting with Henderson, coming out of the dark
staircase. This myth Robertson narrated when examined in September, but
omitted it in the trial in November. Henderson now explained about his
first opening the wrong window, but he sticks to it that he took the
garter from Ruthven, of which James says nothing. He vows that he turned
the key of the door on the staircase, so that Ramsay could enter, whereas
Ramsay averred that he himself forced the door. Mr. Hudson (James's
resident at the Court of England), who in October 1600 interviewed both
Henderson and the King, says that, in fact, the Master had not locked the
door, on his re-entry. {67b} Henderson slunk out when Ramsay came in.
He adds that it was _his_ steel cap which was put on Gowrie's head by a
servant (there was plenty of evidence that a steel cap was thus put on).
One singular point in Henderson's versions is this: after Ruthven, in
deference to James's harangue in the turret, had taken off his hat, the
King said, 'What is it ye crave, man, if ye crave not my life?' '_Sir_,
_it is but a promise_,' answered Ruthven. The King asked 'What promise?'
and Ruthven said that his brother would explain. This tale looks like a
confusion made, by Henderson's memory, in a passage in James's narrative.
'His Majesty inquired what the Earl would do with him, since (if his
Majesty's life were safe, _according to promise_) they could gain little
in keeping such a prisoner.' Ruthven then, in James's narrative, said
'that the Earl would tell his Majesty at his coming.' It appears that
the word 'promise' in the Royal version, occurring at this point in the
story, clung to Henderson's memory, and so crept into his tale. Others
have thought that the Ruthvens wished to extort from James a promise
about certain money which he owed to Gowrie. But to extort a promise, by
secluding and threatening the King, would have been highly treasonable
and dangerous, nor need James have kept a promise made under duress.